


Yeah, But I Thought About It

by jetplane



Series: Whumptober 2020 [19]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Character Death, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Gen, Past Character Death, Temporary Character Death, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27117301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jetplane/pseuds/jetplane
Summary: “What if I’d started taking Dilaudid again? Would you have let me?”“...you didn’t.”“Yeah, but I thought about it.”The BAU had to fake Emily's death for her safety, but they'd never expected the consequences it would have for another of its members.prompts: grief and mourning loved one (day 19)
Series: Whumptober 2020 [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946050
Comments: 13
Kudos: 93
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Yeah, But I Thought About It

**Author's Note:**

> see endnote for content warnings

“Everybody, have a seat,” Hotch ordered. The team did as they were told save for JJ, who took a spot standing next to her unit chief. She knew what he was about to say.

“Seven months ago, I made a decision that affected this team.” Hotch crossed his arms and looked down at the round table. “As you all know, Emily had lost a lot of blood after her fight with Doyle. But the doctors were able to stabilize her, and she was airlifted from Boston to Bethesda under covert exfiltration. Her identity was strictly need-to-know.” He looked from Rossi’s steady gaze to Garcia’s teary eyes to Morgan’s deep frown. “And she stayed there until she was well enough to travel. She was reassigned to Paris where she was given several identities, none of which we had access to for her security.”

Garcia stared at him with a quivering lip. “She’s alive?”

Hotch looked back down at the table. “As I said, I take full responsibility for the decision. If anyone has any issues, they should be directed toward me.”

“Any issues?” Morgan echoed. “Yeah, I got issues.” He opened his mouth to continue but stopped short when he saw everyone’s gazes directed behind him. The agent turned in his chair to see Prentiss standing in the doorway, and any lingering hurt or resentment suddenly didn’t matter anymore. Emily had returned from the dead.

It wasn’t until everyone had had a chance to give Emily a hug that she noticed something was missing. “Wait,” she blurted out. “Where’s Reid?”

Suddenly, it was like all the air had been sucked out of the room. “Prentiss,” JJ said softly. “Spence is dead.”

~

_“Reid? Can you hear me?”_

_Spencer groans and manages to force his eyes open. “H - Hotch?”_

_“It’s me,” Hotch says._

_“I - I think I’m in trouble,” Reid chokes out. “My chest hurts. I can’t breathe well.”_

_“Okay.” The worry is evident in Aaron’s voice. “I’ve called an ambulance and they’re on their way. You’re going to be just fine; all you have to do is hold on for a few more minutes.”_

_“I don’t think I can.” Reid’s voice is starting to slur. “m so tired, Hotch.”_

_“I know, I know.” He’s starting to grow desperate. “Just focus on breathing and listen to the sound of my voice. Can you hear the sirens yet?”_

_Spencer strains his ears. In the distance, he can hear a faint wailing. “I hear th’m,” he mutters._

_“That’s good,” Aaron encourages him. “Keep talking to me.”_

_Reid tries to speak but is overcome by a fit of coughing. A sharp pain stabs into his chest, and he makes a horrible wet sputtering noise as blood comes up from his lungs. Then some of the fluid gets sucked back down his windpipe and he starts to choke. A weak noise of pain escapes Spencer’s lips as waves of pain mix with the beginning stages of oxygen deprivation._

_“Spencer? Spencer, stay with me!”_

_“Can’t.” Forcing that single syllable out takes all his strength. “‘m…tired.”_

_“No!” Hotch half-shouts. “Listen to me, Spencer. You cannot give up. You have to stay awake. Come on, listen to the sound of my voice. You’re going to be okay.”_

_Reid manages to draw some air into his lungs, but it’s not enough. too much. His eyes are too heavy. As hard as he’s trying, he knows he won’t be able to hold on long enough for the ambulance to arrive._

_“I’m s’ry,” Reid croaks. His eyes flutter closed, and then he’s gone._

~

“But I - I don’t understand. I looked at all the portraits on - on the wall when I came in,” she stammered. Emily had passed by the Wall of Heroes to get into the bullpen, and seeing her own photo added to the collection had been one of the strangest things she’d ever experienced. But it was the only one that had been added since she was gone. “I didn’t - he wasn’t…”

Hotch shook his head. “They’re not putting him on the wall,” he said, crossing his arms.

“Then..what happened?”

Everybody looked away. “Maybe you should sit down,” Rossi finally suggested. Prentiss did as she was told, taking her usual seat and trying not to look at Reid’s empty one.

JJ finally worked up the will to speak. “About a month after you...left, Spence relapsed.” She couldn’t meet Emily’s gaze.

“Oh, God,” Prentiss breathed. She swallowed hard and forced herself to say the word. “He overdosed?”

To her surprise, Hotch shook his head. “One of his drug tests came back positive. We were tracking down an unsub at the time,” he explained. “So I took him off the case immediately.”

~

_“Hotch, please,” Reid begs with wide, desperate eyes. His hands shake, and he’s not sure if it’s because of the fear or the drugs. “Don’t take me off the case. It was a one-time mistake and I’ll never make it again; just please don’t take me off the case. I can do my job, I promise, just let me help.”_

_“I wish I could,” Hotch says quietly. He rubs his forehead. “But I won’t let you do this to yourself. You’re going to go back to the hotel and stay there. When the case is closed, you’ll fly back with us and then take a medical leave of absence.”_

_“But-”_

_“Morgan will drive you.” He makes eye contact with Derek, who nods. “You are not to leave his side.”_

~

“I took him back to the hotel to detox,” Morgan said. His shoulders hunched over as he spoke. “We figured the kid would be safe as long as one of us was with him. His withdrawal symptoms were starting, but he said that he was fine, so I went to take a shower.”

Garcia fidgeted with her pen. “I managed to locate the unsub’s car through its GPS. Everyone was heading to the takedown when I called Derek to let him know what was happening.”

“The takedown was closer to our hotel than to the station,” Derek said shamefacedly. “Reid answered my phone and he knew that, so…”

“Oh, God,” Emily breathed.

~

_Hotch’s phone rings. It’s Derek, and he answers it without hesitation. “Morgan, how’s Reid?”_

_“Hotch, he’s gone,” Morgan blurts out, sounding frantic._

_His blood runs cold. Aaron has to fight his most primitive instincts to not immediately slam on the brakes. “What?!”_

_“Reid’s gone. He just disappeared, and there’s a needle - Hotch, I think he shot up.”_

_“You didn’t check to see if he had any drugs left?!” Hotch asks incredulously._

_“I did, man, I swear,” Derek insists. “I made him flush two vials - I didn’t realize he had more. I was just in the shower, Hotch, it was five minutes, max.” Something hits the ground in Morgan’s hotel room, and he gasps. “Oh my God.”_

_“Morgan, what is it?” Hotch swerves, narrowly avoiding a collision with a truck. “Morgan?”_

_“Hotch…” Morgan’s voice is more terrified than his unit chief has ever heard it. “The car keys are gone.”_

~

“He shot up and then he took my car keys.” Morgan fixed his gaze on the ceiling.

“He shot up?” Prentiss asked disbelievingly. “What - what - why would he…?”

JJ shifted uncomfortably. “He was in withdrawal. It was the only way he could get the symptoms to stop,” she whispered. “It wasn’t his fault. But then - then he got to the unsub first.”

~

_“Hello?” Reid’s voice is distressingly casual. Not at all like an addict chasing a serial killer should sound, at least in Hotch’s mind._

_“Reid, Morgan just called me,” Hotch informs him. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you need to stop.”_

_“I can’t do that, Hotch. I know the profile. If we lose the unsub now, at least three more people will be dead by morning.”_

_Aaron’s heart drops into his stomach. “Reid, you’re not on this case,” he insists. “We have a whole police force in pursuit of the unsub.”_

_“You’re at least five minutes away,” Reid replies. “I can see him right now.”_

_“You - what? Reid, pull over!”_

_“I can see him, Hotch. I can take him down,” Spencer insists. “He’s going to ditch the car; you’ll never be able to find him.”_

_Part of Hotch knows that Reid is right. But the rest of him doesn’t care about the three hypothetical victims, only the very real agent who is putting his life on the line while high on God-knows-what. “Agent Reid, stop the car! That’s an order! Stop the car right now!”_

_“I’m sorry, Hotch, but-”_

_A horrifying noise pierces through the speaker, glass shattering as metal smashes into metal and rubber tears across the road. “Reid!”_

~

“We got there three minutes later,” Morgan recounted grimly. “Reid had pinned the unsub’s car so he couldn’t get out. They had to call an extraction team to get the guy, but there was barely a scratch on him. But the kid…” Tears filled Emily’s eyes as she pictured the sweet, funny Spencer Reid slamming into a car. It didn’t make any sense.

~

_“He’s in cardiac arrest!” the EMT shouts. “I’m starting compressions!” She pushes Hotch away from where he’s holding Reid’s hand and begins to perform CPR._

_Aaron can only stare at Spencer’s lifeless body. “Come on, Reid,” he pleads. “Stay with us.”_

_“I’ve got the AED!” another calls out. He tears off what’s left of Reid’s bloody shirt and attaches the pads to his chest. “Clear!”_

_His chest jerks, the sound of the electric shock ringing in Hotch’s ears. “Again!” someone yells. There’s another shock, and then Spencer’s chest rises again. “We have a pulse!”_

~

“The steering wheel crushed Reid’s chest. His heart stopped in the ambulance, but the EMTs managed to get it back,” Hotch said. “He was still alive at the hospital.”

“But he never made it off the table.” The words tasted bitter in JJ’s mouth. Garcia covered her face and let out a quiet sob. They could all still see the surgeon’s bloody scrubs and haunted expression as he approached them, and they’d known without saying that Spencer was gone.

Emily was crying freely by that point. She’d known that she’d lose her friends in Paris, but they had promised her that it was only temporary, that they would all be back together soon. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. “Why?” she found herself choking out.

JJ stood up and crossed the room to give Emily a hug. She wanted to confess, that Reid had come to her house in tears every day since the “death” and that her decision to let him believe the lie had cost them everything, but the words wouldn’t make it past her lips. “I know,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“I - I need a minute,” Prentiss said suddenly. She couldn’t be in that room, couldn’t look at Reid’s empty chair any longer. The agent stumbled out of the room, leaving the rest of her team behind.

Somehow, Prentiss made it all the way outside the building before she collapsed in tears, ignoring the passersby who gave her strange looks. She didn’t know how long she sat on the steps crying before someone put a hand on her shoulder, and she wrenched away before turning to look at the person behind her. It was Morgan. “Hey,” he said gently. “I wanted to see how you were doing.”

She buried her face in her hands. “I just can’t - how could he - why?”

Derek gave her a sympathetic look as he rubbed her shoulder. “I know,” he replied. Heat built up between his eyelids, but he swallowed down the tears. “It’s not fair.”

“I just - I just keep thinking that…” Prentiss trailed off. A fresh wave of sobs overtook her as she clutched Morgan’s hand. She could barely breathe as she pictured Reid alone, bleeding out on an operating table just like she had. She’d missed his last moments. Even his funeral. There was no way she’d be able to forgive herself for that.

Finally, the tears had stopped enough that she could speak again. Derek decided to ask. “What are you thinking?” he questioned gently.

She wrapped her arms around herself and hung her head. “I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.”

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings for major character death, mentions of drug use, and a car accident


End file.
